In all the countries that we’re visiting we try to go to the National museum to get a better overview of the country’s history and heritage. And so we did here in KL also. The entrance fee is only 5 ringgit and for that you’ll get access to 4 huge halls containing hundreds of exhibits through earliest days of civilization in this area to present times. There are also several free exhibition halls with various displays.

Right near to the National museum there’s also a police museum which maybe at first doesn’t sound very interesting but actually it’s definitely worth a visit. You can learn a lot about what different equipment has been used in Malaysia and in SE Asia through the years. There are also several different cars, bikes and other machinery on display and it’s totally free. Spending about an hour there is definitely not a bad idea!

In the middle of those 2 places is the National planetarium which we skipped this time since we were quite hot from all the walking and it seemed to be minus degrees in the building. Maybe that will be for some time in the future :).

All in all there are actually quite many museums and similar facilities with free or very inexpensive admittance fees in KL. Back that with all the different parks, beautiful buildings and skyscrapers this city is pretty nice and interesting place to be 🙂

One very good thing in here is the lunchtime on business days. It seems that during this time many different food trucks park themselves on the streets between the buildings and suddenly a huge number of nicely dressed office workers fill the streets to get lunch for themselves. For us it’s also very convenient since you can get an extremely delicious meal for only 6 ringgits (about 1,2€) without walking more than a minute or two.

Also Uber is really inexpensive in KL. Our nearly 60km trip from the airport was 75 ringgit and smaller trips in the city cost no more than 5-15. Of course you have to take under consideration that in some cases you are probably quicker on foot due to the traffic jams.

Tomorrow we plan to visit the famous Batu caves. More about it in the next posts :)!

Today we went to a little 5 hour walk to the beautiful KL Botanical gardens and orchid farm. These both are part of a vast park located near downtown KL which also contains Butterfly park, Bird park, Hibiscus park, planetarium and lots of different museums and greenery. Although during this time we managed to cover only a certain part of this huge place it was extremely beautiful. Everything is clean, there are plenty of pathways, lakes, ponds, fountains and it’s all combined in such a way that it seems to you that you’re in some sort of wonderland. In addition there are squirrels running around everywhere, different lizards trying to find their food underneath the trees and colorful fish swimming around in ponds. We will definitely go back there during our stay in KL to visit the bird park which we skipped today since we had already been walking for quite some time and also to discover the rest of this magnificent place. In the next videos I’ll also try to give you a small glance of it since it’s quite difficult to do with pictures from a cell-phone.

Our original plan was to go there with a bike since a bike sharing service called oBike is quite popular here. But actually this city is not very good for biking since sidewalks are quite narrow and already occupied with people while there are thousands of cars roaming the streets. In addition for some reason many of the bikes we tried to unlock were broken (as the app promptly told us) and it turns out with one user you can only unlock one bike at a time so we quickly buried this idea. Although for riding around in the park itself they are really good and most likely we will use that option next time.

Meanwhile I also put together the first video of KL so you could get a first overview of what this city is all about 🙂

Today it has been a quiet day. At least for us but it seems that the city goes on at full gas all the time. Thousands of people are constantly shopping, there are traffic jams 24/7 and just masses of crowds everywhere. Doesn’t matter what day of the week it is or whether it’s Christmas Eve or not. But it’s still really beautiful and we even managed to cook a Christmas dinner with chicken, potatoes and other similar things we could find. And it was really delicious! We lit a few candles and although it’s not the same as being back home with family and friends there’s still a spark of Christmas spirit in us :). I wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays wherever you are in the world!

Compared to other places we’ve been Langkawi is most likely the least expensive. Especially if you consider very cheap alcohol and gas prices. Nevertheless here are the results of our 17 day stay as usual averaged out per day for 2 people

Groceries (different food items and all other similar things) – 25,8 ringgit

Transport (in case of Langkawi it also contains only of scooter rental, gas and Uber to/from airport. We used scooter for most of the time during our stay) – 16,7 ringgit

Eating out (also includes breakfast) – 28,8 ringgit. In Langkawi we quite often cooked our own meal at the hostel so if you plan to eat 3 times a day out the cost will definitely be higher

Entrance fees (Langkawi Cable Car, cinema and the watch tower at Gunung Raya) – 8,7baht. Different island hopping tours were available from as low as 35 ringgit per person but this time, after already doing that in Phuket, we skipped it

As said before the accommodation in Langkawi was not the cheapest one + since from last year there is also a nationwide tourist tax for everyone 10 ringgit per room per night. Our hostel cost us 1687 ringgit. So in total we spent during 17 days roughly 1632+1687=3319 ringgit (about 682€). The ratio between accommodation and all other expenses was about 50:50 which also reflects not so cheap accommodation costs related to other living expenses.

I hope that you find some value in this and to finish off our adventures on Langkawi here’s the second video of this beautiful island

I really don’t know where to start this post… so I’ll just start from the beginning. Although many airports in bigger cities are located quite far from the center in case of KL it’s about 60km and at least an hour ride. During this time we saw quite much of the city and surroundings. Near the city there were just acres of palm tree plantations related to Malaysia being the biggest palm oil exporter in the world. But when we neared the city we were astonished by how many skyscrapers there are in KL and nearby locations. And if in other cities I have gazed my eyes upon most of the skyscrapers are some sort of business buildings in here they are mostly residential flats. Some 40-50 stories high with hundreds and hundreds of apartments in them. We’d never seen anything like that before. And in downtown KL it’s the same story. Although it’s known mostly by the famous Petronas twin-towers there are dozens and dozens of same kind of skyscrapers everywhere! I’ve been to Manhattan and similar places but for some reason in KL it really stands out and quite often you find yourself looking above at the heights of these giants. Plus it seems that they are constantly building even more of these, each higher than the previous.

Downtown Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur really can’t be compared. Not to make any harm to BK but the latter is much more cleaner, glamorous and business-like. There is no litter around and everything seems to be tidy. There are several huge parks and forests to go and have a walk and enjoy the jungle in the middle of the city. And when we were staying in Bangkok I wrote about huge shopping malls but KL is on another level! Kuala Lumpur is one of the leading cities in the world for tourism and shopping and it really shows out. 3 out of 10 worlds biggest shopping malls are located in here and the rest are not much smaller. Today we went to 2 of them and it’s quite impossible to describe the scale of these, you just have to see it with your own eyes. Probably the most high-end of these is the Pavilion KL with over 700 (!) stores and every known brand in the world represented. You can see names like Armani, Gucci, Chanel, Valentino, Roberto Cavalli, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Versace etc everywhere! Of course they are supported with Lamborghini’s, Porsche’s and Bentley’s driving around on the streets… And they have quite a Christmas madness here. I made a picture so you’d get a glimpse of what’s going on 🙂

Our accommodation is located in dead-center of everything. Biggest shopping malls, markets, nightlife streets, food courts, parks, twin-towers and everything else are just a small walk away. Which is good since we already got to comfortable with riding a scooter for nearly 2 months in Phuket and Langkawi. The building that our apartment is located is not the newest one but everything you could ask for is provided. Huge living room/area shared with 2 other apartments, a balcony, big kitchen and so one. We have also a swimming pool and a small gym on the first floor but our host was so kind to provide us a free pass for the whole 13 days to the well-equipped gym located just at the next building! There’s also a top-notch pool and even a sauna with proper Harvia heater! So there will be a gym and relaxation time planned for each day for our stay in here :).

In tomorrow’s post I’ll share our Langkawi budget and also the second video of our stay on that beautiful island 🙂

I believe that many of you who have interest in books have already read this piece of art. I myself I’m not a very big fan of these kind of books since mostly I invest my time into some sort of self-education works. But every once in a while it’s good to read some very intriguing story and this was most certainly one of them and definitely not any less of a investment! Over a period of 3 days I read through 600 pages of this great classic and quite often I found myself peeking to the next page or at least a few lines ahead to know what was going to happen. Although it was first published already in 1874 reading it now is definitely not less enchanting than over a 100 years ago. It’s maybe just because of that even more interesting to read since the language used is quite much different compared to these days. And it’s also quite remarkable how a book can affect your imagination since most of these 3 days I was constantly imagining everything that was going on behind the words. So in conclusion I once again strongly advice you to take the time to go through the pages of this novel since it’s extremely capturing from start to finish and an exquisite refreshment to your senses!

In the evening there are quite many mosquitoes flying around so use repellent or be ready to scratch! I’ve done the latter mostly…

Most popular car in here seems to be Proton which is logical since the brand is originated largely from Malaysia. And most of the cars are smaller compact ones, not pickups like in Thailand.

Smoking is really popular around here and the not so good part is that it’s allowed also in public places. One package of local cigarettes costs about 0,45€

There are around 90000 people living on the islands of Langkawi but only 4 of the 99 islands are inhabited

English is really common around here and you even hear locals speaking it quite often amongst themselves. There are just so many different dialects that sometimes it’s easier to communicate in English it seems

Although snorkeling is supposed to be quite popular here we still haven’t found any place with nearly as clear water as in Phuket for example. Maybe it’s just like that this time of the year..

Walking around in the main tourist street is like walking in a huge duty free shop like ones found in airports. After every 20 meters there’s another shop. But the prices are mostly much cheaper 🙂

Most reasonable method of transportation is renting a scooter. But if you don’t have an official A category license I’d stay clear from Jalan Pantai Chenang street since it seems to be a hotspot for police. Otherwise it’s rather quiet in the other places on the island. And from this year Uber is also available in Langkawi with very good prices!

When the sun sets a huge number of different bars open on the beach with fire shows, great music and hookah which is also really popular in here

There are a huge number of resorts on the island with some of them having private white sand beaches

BigMac in here is the best I’ve ever had :)! I don’t know why but it just is! Most of the time we eat local food or go to the market and make something on our own in the hostel kitchen but on some occasions we have also found ourselves in McDonalds and only because of that BigMac 🙂 Sorry! 🙂

Local radio stations play a lot of songs from 5, 6, 7 or 10 years ago. And it’s great to here these old hits again :). For some reason Akon is also really popular here..

Monkeys are to be found everywhere on the island. Sitting on the roadside, climbing on the trees or just chilling on the beach.

And one more time – it’s difficult to imagine more beautiful mountains, beaches and waterfalls then in Langkawi 🙂